And of course…it’s all proudly vegan!

Cafe Van Gogh is a vegan restaurant famous for cooking delicious, plant-based dishes using seasonal ingredients.

The restaurant is also a not for profit social enterprise and runs an on-the-job training for people with additional challenges in life, such as a learning disability or a mental health problem to provide them with the support and confidence to seek paid employment. Meatless Movement recently had a chat with Bonita. She told Meatless Movement that when you use their cafe, you are contributing to social good.

Please tell us more about yourself

We are strongly against any kind of animal abuse
Bonita and Steve – Cafe Van Gogh

I am director and head chef of Cafe Van Gogh (based on Brixton Road). I have been a chef for almost 10 years after moving to London when I was 19. I started out working in more meat-focused restaurants, but as I was veggie and gradually turning vegan at this time, I decided to solely focus on cooking vegan food.

My business partner, Steve, started the cafe as a vegetarian business. We turned it vegan about 4 years ago and it has been even more popular since. We are strongly against any kind of animal abuse particularly that of the meat, dairy and egg industry. On top of this we try to minimise our carbon footprint as much as possible and believe every business should be doing the same thing.

Come and enjoy our beautiful space
Bonita and Steve – Cafe Van Gogh

Cafe Van Gogh is a vegan restaurant (with a more cafe feel during the daytime). We are open Tuesday – Sunday both daytimes and evenings (except for Sundays when we are only open for Sunday lunch. We focus on making delicious, seasonal dishes with the menu changing every 6 weeks.

Although things are changing positively in terms of the accessibility of vegan food, particularly in London, I have always been fed up with having to have a drab and unexciting option when going out to eat. Therefore my main aim when creating menus is to make every dish as exciting as the one before it – I like the idea of customers struggling to choose from the menu!

On top of making delicious food we are also a non-profit, social enterprise and focus on training people with learning difficulties or a mental health issue, the skills they need in the work place to further gain paid employment, whether that’s with us or through other employers

‘As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colours enough to paint the beautiful things I see.’ Vincent Van Gogh 1858⁠
Bonita and Steve – Cafe Van Gogh

We are named Cafe Van Gogh due to Vincent Van Gogh living round the corner during the late 1800’s. As the building is on the corner of the methodist church, the building has a unique charming feel to it and spans two floors with a spiral staircase. We are lucky to have a beautiful courtyard at the back which is a lovely spot to sit in during the warmer months, particularly as there is a fountain which runs year round.

We loosely base our aesthetic style on Van Gogh’s paintings, I love bright colours and lots of plants!. An added feature that ties us in with Van Gogh is he struggled with this mental health, particularly during his later years and we can obviously have trainees working with us who might be suffering from something similar.

At Cafe Van Gogh we believe that delicious food made from scratch is the key to people’s hearts
Bonita and Steve – Cafe Van Gogh

Our Tofu Banh Mi is a staple dish on our weekday lunch menu. We glaze the tofu in gochujang marinade (which is a fermented red pepper paste), sear it off and serve it in a baguette with sweet chilli mayo, mushroom pate (traditional Vietnamese banh mi’s usually have a pork liver pate inside), ribboned daikon and carrots and heaps of fresh coriander. We offer a meal deal with this dish where you can purchase a banh mi, a cold drink and a seasonal salad or side of fries all for a tenner. This is a popular one for a grab and go lunch break.

The Van Gogh burger is probably our most popular dish. We make the burger patty in house, currently we have a sweet potato and black bean one one. The burgers are stacked with beer onion chutney, pickle juice mayo, iceberg and gherkins and come with ‘bacon’ salt fries. There’s an option to add extra cheese and ‘bacon’ if you want to go all out.

For our winter menu we are serving a sticky toffee pudding. We like to go for a generous portion size with this one – it’s currently on with creme fraiche but it will soon change to stracciatella ice cream for our Christmas Menu.